‘Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’

The last time Congress passed comprehensive tax reform was more than 30 years ago, in 1986.

Since that time, the tax code has gotten less fair, more complex, and riddled with politically driven special interest preferences.  One of the few points of real agreement in Washington is that the tax code is broken and needs to be fixed.

But the ‘Tax Cuts and Jobs Act‘ does not fix or reform the tax code.

It increases the deficit, is riddled with gimmicks to mask the true cost, and perpetuates the toxic practice of pretending that certain tax cuts are temporary.

There is only one fix to this bill that makes sense for taxpayers: Throw it out and start from scratch through regular order.

— Ryan Alexander, president of TCS

At Taxpayers for Common Sense, we believe that tax reform must be bipartisan and must be paid for.

The current bill fails on the following important fronts:

• Adds $1.5 Trillion to the deficit
• Is being pushed through without time for public review or input from Senators who represent a majority of the country.
• This is a debt financed tax cut – no serious effort to pay for it with credible offsets.
• Full of gimmicks and timing tricks to make it look like it increases the deficit less than it does.
• Invites the rent seeking practice of tax extenders by failing to make the difficult trade offs that would allow the changes to be permanent.